


to form a connected whole

by grassangel



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Doctor Who Lore, Episode Fix-It: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Exposition, F/M, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Oedipal overtones, Other, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Rassilon (Doctor Who) is a Dick, Sort Of, Soulmates, Tecteun is the Doctor, absolutely loads of it, and Looms, and by that I mean there's Lungbarrow references, the Timeless Child is the Master, very Chibnall-esque
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25645606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grassangel/pseuds/grassangel
Summary: The Doctor tells the Master the rest of the story of the Timeless Child.a shameless TTC fix-it
Relationships: Tecteun & the Timeless Child, Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 41





	to form a connected whole

It had taken the Master ages to find the planet on which Tecteun had found the Timeless Child. The portal was long gone, whatever impossible power that had created the doorway between worlds long exhausted. The rest of the planet is barren save for the still soaring monuments that litter the landscape, abandoned but not yet completely ruined by time. 

He pokes around the ruins in an attempt to find out more about her, about the Timeless Child, but finds nothing — anything useful lost long ago to the sands of time. His TARDIS is useless as well, refusing to go any further back in the planet's timeline than when he arrived.

Frustrated, the Master sets about destroying the planet. He ignores the way the place smells like home, instead focusing on the pleasure of blowing chunks out of the various monuments and laying charges deep underground that he can set off from orbit. It's almost fun until he rounds a corner and spots a familiar blue box. 

"No, no, no," he growls, turning to leave at the sight. Maybe he can detonate the charges he's laid with her still on the planet. 

The buzz of her stupid sonic fills the Master's ears and too late he realises it's set to a knockout frequency.

The last thing he sees before passing out is the achingly familiar sight of the tall reaching spires of a monument reaching up to an endless lavender sky. 

* * *

The Master wakes up to the sensation of fingers caressing his cheek, the soft touch pulling him out of unconsciousness. He starts when he realises who the fingers belong to, whose lap he's lying in, but the Doctor's other hand gently presses down on his chest. He tests his wrists and ankles - there are no other restraints aside from the Doctor's arms — and he makes to pull himself up.

"No," the Doctor pushes firmly down on his chest this time. "You told me part of the true story of the Timeless Child. Now let me tell you the rest."

There's nothing holding the Master in her lap save for the hand on his chest and the one running softly through his hair, nothing aside from her firm tone and his own curiosity.

"Fine then, continue," he says, lip curling in distaste as he settles back into the soft warmth of the Doctor's lap. Looking up into her face, it's filled with storm clouds, which only darken when she reaches for his hand and holds it, their linked hands resting gently over his left-most heart.

"We were told the story of the Timeless Child who was the first child Rassilon gave the gift of regeneration to — the first child of Gallifrey to have thirteen lives. What you discovered in the Matrix was the fact that story was a falsehood, that instead the Timeless Child was the child from which that gift was stolen, not by Rassilon, but by Tecteun, the nameless other founder of Gallifrey.  
"But what you discovered in the Matrix was not left there by Tecteun for the Child. It was left there for herself, to remind her of her errors."

The Doctor's hair stops running through the Master's hair.

"You were so upset that you couldn't break the encryption on that segment of redacted data. That you couldn't show me the whole truth." Her voice cracks a little in that description of his failure, as if upset that he had been upset, before the Doctor gives him a little smile, her hand gently petting his hair.

"You weren't meant to see what was hidden there."

She pauses again, giving him time to process her words, smoothing out the crease in his brow with soft fingertips as her meaning dawns on him.

"I went back to the Matrix, after a bit of a misadventure, to see what you had shown me again. I almost missed it the first time around —there was no encryption, no partitioning— just uninterrupted Matrix memories. Memories unlocked by my biodata."

Her fingers are sill running over the Master's brow, gentle and soothing, as she continues.

"By the time of those memories they had set up the Matrix for a few hundred years — enough time for a few thousand of the brightest Shabogan minds and a couple dozen newly minted Time Lords to have contributed to the databanks. Looms had been newly developed by Tecteun, though overseen is perhaps a more accurate term as she had fully embraced her role as a Founder of Gallifrey and, much like Rassilon, was now always eager to put her name to things.  
"She and Rassilon both saw the potential in using the Matrix and Looms together — to revive lost minds and to edit recalcitrant Time Lords into suitable citizens."

The Doctor gives him a wry smile. "They had a problem with renegades even then, and they saw they had the tools to fix it."  
"One of those those troublesome citizens was the child Tecteun had found so long ago, from whom Gallifreyan society had been built. The child had served them well enough — their DNA well studied and understood, and obedient enough to volunteer for the Division all the many times they had been asked. But those memory wipes were taking their toll and even though they were thorough, fragments remained, enough to interfere with the missions the Child was sent on.  
"It was after one such mission —where the Child had run away from their masters with the aid of a sympathetic agent— that it was decided that the Child would be terminated, their memories and personality edited in the Matrix and then subsequently revived via Looming."

"As I said, their DNA was well studied and understood," the hand around his tightens, "and they had already discovered various methods and compounds that would prevent the Child from regenerating."

The Doctor pulls her hand away from the Master's, both of them coming to rest loosely on his shoulders. "The Child learned of this plan and confronted Tecteun about it and all the unspoken, unrecorded, missions they had been sent on, what they had been forced to do.  
"Genocide, planetary destruction, inciting civil war, overthrowing and destroying the leadership of 'lesser species' so that Gallifrey could swoop in and benevolently take over."

The Doctor's hands are now fists against the Master's shoulders, even as his hearts sink further into the cold, dark reality painted by her words.

"Rassilon had gone above Tecteun's head in ordering many of the those missions and she was distraught by what he had made her child do. But, looking at the Child and the way they had fought her, the way they had wrested what had been meant to kill them away from her, Tecteun couldn't deny what she and Rassilon had made the Child into.

"There was a Matrix access point in her lab. Tecteun changed the settings to store and destroy any body that crossed its threshold. Then she set this limit to two. Two bodies to store and destroy."

A tear burns hot against the Master's cheek and he does the only thing to comfort the Doctor. He reaches up and takes one of her still fisted hands in his.  
He gets a wan smile for his efforts but it doesn't stop her from continuing the story they both know the end of.

"She let the Child corner her, let them scream and rage against what they had been made to do, what they had been shaped into. Tecteun let them rage, and then apologised, as a mother to their child, that she had caused such hurt, such harm.

"Then–" the Doctor pauses, her eyes closed as she takes a deep breath. The Master's hearts are thudding in his chest, loud drumbeats echoing in his ears in the silence before the Doctor continues. "Then she opened her arms, offering an embrace, and they both fell into the Matrix."

The Doctor is curled over her lap now, curled over the Master, blonde hair a curtain around their heads, her voice quiet and low.

"They were meant to stay in the Matrix together, forever. An eternal unchanging life as apology for one and a way to ensure the other never meddled in their life again. But always together." 

"Except Rassilon had other plans.  
"He ordered the resurrection of the Timeless Child, of Tecteun. But their biodata had been, because of their method of entry into the Matrix, because of all those experiments Tecteun had performed on herself, irretrievably intertwined. That didn't stop Rassilon from trying over and over, issuing an eternal edict to attempt to revive the two biodata signatures as they had been when they had entered the Matrix.  
"They almost succeeded, once. Two boys and the best of friends. But the one who was mostly the Child was too ambitious, and the one that was mostly Tecteun too willing and amicable."

"That was the last time before Gallifrey was destroyed. For the first time." There's a wry smile on the Doctor's face at that, barely visible in the curtained gloom that her hair provides though she's no longer curled over the Master, as she acknowledges her actions previous to the Master's own razing of the planet.

"But that destruction offered them an opportunity. One of the two had burnt through their regenerations and, in the chaos of war, Rassilon, risen once again, took the opportunity to resurrect the Timeless Child without the interference of their eternal partner. It was a success, the reincarnated Timeless Child was tractable once again. Tractable enough that the High Council wasted no time in making the Child do their bidding once more.  
"And, though their plans fell through, the imperfect version of Tecteun proved once again Gallifrey's saviour. The council rewarded this by rewriting their biodata, an opportunity afforded when their regenerations ran out. Though yet again, this was to be Rassilon and the High Council's downfall."

The Doctor smiles, peaceful as she brushes a strand of hair off the Master's forehead.

"I think you know the rest of the story."

The two of them sit in silence for a while, the story still spinning out between them, before the Master speaks, angry tears building at the corners of his eyes. "Why tell me this?"

"Because you should know the truth, the real truth." The Doctor pauses. "And because I want to apologise for whatever I did when we were children, and in all the lives before, that ever made you feel lesser. I want to apologise for hurting you, not just in this lifetime, but that first lifetime as well. I was no better than the High Council that put those drums in your head.  
"And," she nudges the Master's head from where's he rolled it to look angrily at the sculptural monument they're in back into her lap, so she can look at him properly and so he can't hide from her, "because I love you. In a variety of ways, I've always loved you." 

She leans forward, resting her head against his. 

"Perhaps that's my greatest apology to you — my eternal love and forgiveness, no matter what you do, no matter how many planets you burn, no matter how many people you kill."

"And I hope," the Doctor says, her lips soft against the Master's skin, "that your consistent love means I'm forgiven too."

They're both crying slow silent tears when the Master responds, pushing himself up to wrap the Doctor in his arms, kissing her, words soft against her lips.

"It does, it does."

**Author's Note:**

> This was written over twelve notebook pages, long hand, in order that I could change ink colours in a fountain pen. Infer from that what you will about the quality of this fic, though I am spitefully serious in my theory of the Doctor being Tecteun and not the Timeless Child.
> 
> Kudos and comments are, as ever, welcome. You can also ask questions or squee at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/grassangel), [tumblr](https://grassangel.tumblr.com/) and [dreamwidth](https://grassangel.dreamwidth.org/).  
> Alternatively you can join the [Best Enemies Discord server](https://discord.gg/aep2qbW) and talk to me (and other Doctor/Master shippers) there.


End file.
